


Black Cats and Broken Mirrors

by ProwlingThunder



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Break-It/Fix-It, Character Death, F/M, Felix is having Issues, Felix is not Coping Well, Injury, Recovery, Shopping is Dangerous, Therapy Required, feel-good fic, more character death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-06-07 08:05:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6796006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProwlingThunder/pseuds/ProwlingThunder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's over and it's done, and Felix gave everything to make it happen.</p><p>It's his own bad luck that says he has to do it twice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Feral Chats

**Author's Note:**

> More tags will be added as the fic progresses. Heaven help me.

_His Queen.. his queen, his queen, his queen--_

Papillion had done it. He had done it and Chat Noir was going to _destroy him and rip him to shreds,_ even if it wasn't what his Queen would have wanted, even if it wasn't going to bring her _back--_ he was going to fix this because that was what _she_ would have done, but he couldn't fix it her way, he was no Ladybug. He couldn't right the world, bad luck didn't work that way, and his Queen was _gone--_

Papillion was going to change the world, but even if Ladybug came back, his queen-- _Marinette,_ his mind supplied unhelpfully, Marinette had been his queen and he hadn't _known_ until Papillion had taken her _away from him_ \--

Marinette would never come back. He hadn't caught her in time. His bad luck had overshadowed hers. He couldn't _fix_ that. Nothing could.

He could fix Papillion. He could finish what he started. Papillion had begun this, he had called them out to begin with, he had started the war. His Queen had paid her dues in blood. He would-- he would break, later, when he had time, because he didn't have time now. She had called for him, _God, she had called for him and he hadn't made it--_ and her last words hadn't been for herself, it hadn't been to ask for help.

She had never even known who he was.

Plagg had made him a cat, personification of bad luck and all, black from the tips of his ears to the tip of his tail. His Queen has brought him in from the cold, a stray she didn't have to keep.

Papillion had made him feral.

Papillion had signed his own death warrant in his Queen's blood.

Chat Noir is going to spread pieces of him all over Paris.

 

The thing about Papillion is that he can fly. He is a _butterfly._

The thing about butterflies is that cats _eat_ them.

 

His Queen, his Ladybug, _Marinette,_ did not come back. Chat Noir was a Cataclysm, not a Lucky Charm, but even still, nothing brought the dead back. Papillion had held her Miraculous in his hands, determined to resurrect _someone_ but most people only had one life.

Avenging his Queen felt right. Horrible, terrible, yet right. But that had not brought her back.

 

Tikki and Nooroo were--

Alive. Even if the butterfly would not look at him, and Chat Noir refused to care too much about that. He had bad luck. He had just... liberally applied some to Papillion. It didn't matter if it had freed him or not. Death was death, and he had killed the owner of the Butterfly Miraculous while it was still in use. Nooroo was allowed to hate him. Now, there were more important things to worry about.

Right now, he had to hope the ladybug's luck held true for kwami, otherwise they were all going to legitimately go down with the ship. He offered their jewels to them, feeling Plagg a soft weight on his shoulders. He had run out of time and out of energy; he hadn't exactly gotten out of the fight unscathed, but there was no way to get off a flying, soon-to-crash zeppelin. Not for a mortal man. He couldn't _actually_ fly it. "You two need to go, as quick as you can. I don't know what will happen if these are destroyed..."

"What about you?" Tikki chittered, curling little arms around her earrings. Nooroo took the broach uncomfortably.

Chat's fingers were still stained with blood. _More_ than his fingers were stained with blood. He didn't blame him.

"We're staying behind," Plagg informed her. "The fire should burn all the akuma. We have to make sure."

He felt his gut twist in anxiety at those words. Now that he had lost his Queen, he had no fear of death. He _welcomed_ it. Let death take him. Let it bring him back to his heart. And yet..

He glanced at the cats-head ring where it rested on his middle finger. Plagg _shouldn't_ have to die with him. Plagg should have been able to take the ring and go, save himself and his Miraculous, in the way he hadn't been able to save Marinette. But he couldn't, because the curse still anchored the jewel to him.

It didn't come off.

He wondered if the crash would destroy it, or if it would survive, if Plagg could survive. He wondered if someone would even be able to remove it from his charred bones. The thoughts were conflicting, and he didn't know which one he wanted more.

It didn't matter.

In the end, he'd be dead.

 

Tikki tried to tell him something before she left, but he couldn't bear to hear it. He hadn't been able to save her champion, his red-coated queen. He didn't deserve her forgiveness. He didn't deserve her attention.

Nooroo tried to tell him something too, but in the end, whatever it was had hurt too much, or perhaps he hadn't known the words.

Either way, the fire had made them run out of time. It was his bad luck. They'd had to go. He watched them through shattered windows, until they were just distant spots in the sky.

"..I wish you could have gone with them."

Plagg snorted, tail twitching. "You couldn't have gotten rid of me if you tried."

The truth in those words was enough to drive another knife between his ribs. He managed a tired, apologetic smile. If only there had been more time, maybe his queen could have washed away his bad luck. If only he had known-- or thought to _think--_ that his queen could be the star-struck youth who followed him through school, begging his attention--

"..I'm glad you're here, Plagg." He closed his eyes. He was Chat Noir, and luck had eaten up all of his nine lives. But at least he did not have to die alone.

"Yeah, kid, me too."

 

The zeppelin fell. The Super Hero known as Chat Noir fell with it, and he let himself fall, and fall, and fall.

Death took him like a comfy bed and a warm pillow.

  
  
Felix de Noire woke in a trash dumpster like an alley-cat, with Plagg snoozing on his chest.


	2. Lucky Chats

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to make note last chapter. Felix's surname is inspired by imthepunchlord's [Grumpy Cat.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6327250/chapters/14497546) Albeit with a bit of conversion from my friendly ~~local~~ French speakers.

There were too many people at the hospital. Felix could hear them from his perch, making their way down long hallways, talking with voices that were meant to be quiet but echoed down the linoleum to sensitive ears.

Most of them were innocuous conversations. Patients asking after painkillers for sprained wrists, ankles, asking what was wrong with them and why they couldn't sleep. Nurses were talking to each other; friends sharing jokes, cooing over pictures of children.

One nurse down the hall was named Élise. She had three children, a girl and two boys. One of the boys was teething, and she'd had to bargain with her mother for babysitting some of the days so she could rest. She was exhausted, and she didn't know how to make him stop. Felix could believe that. He could hear it in her voice, how tired she was, the tremor in her voice that belied her at wits end.

Felix had seen none of the patients, which was something of a relief. The nurses were cordial, if skittish like kittens.

Officer Roger had been.. nice enough, when he had stumbled out of the alley. Nicer still when he had tried to order an ambulance for him. Somewhat less nice when he had ignored Felix's request  _ not _ to call the ambulance, citing that he was "covered in blood," which was true, and insisting that he "sit down before you fall down." He had downright ignored him when he tried to say he was alright.

He hadn't been, of course. He still was not. Plagg sipped at water from a paper cup that he was supposed to be drinking, trying to pretend it wasn't difficult to accomplish. They were alike in that respect. He himself was trying very hard to pretend his whole body wasn't in impressive pain, even with the painkillers they had insisted he down when they had seen the extensive bruising, lacerations, and burns.

The doctors had seen his old scars, born from Parisian rooftops while chasing after his Queen. When his Ladybug had said jump, he had never asked  _ "How high?" _

He had jumped. Forget how high.

Sometimes he stuck the landings. Sometimes... Cats didn't always land on their feet. Sometimes he didn't get to  _ land. _

They had written plenty on their charts, even while officers had tried to talk to him. Felix had permitted himself to be uncomfortable, though not overly distressed. If he was melancholy for his Queen, they could take it as they wished. Certainly he learned a lot from their asking questions. Many of them he could even answer truthfully.

Did he know what day it was? No. They told him the date. It was tomorrow. Well, it was the day after he and his Ladybug had gone to face Papillion. It was the day after she had died. It was the day after  _ he _ had died. Should have died.

Did he know who he was? Yes. Felix de Noire. He was the son of Séverin and Alexis de Noire. He was Chat Noir, yet he did not tell them that. How could he be Chat Noir without his Queen to follow around?  _ He _ had let her fall.  _ He _ had not caught her.

Did he know where he was? Paris. Where else could he  _ be? _

Then they asked a question which had drove him quiet. Where had he been  _ held _ since his kidnapping? They had asked again, and Felix had told them honestly he did not know. They had tried to press, and the teenager had no answers for them. He ran them in circles of honesty, exhausting their questions with careful, guileless deflection that was only a little difficult. Still, he was Chat Noir, and while he may have been bad luck, he was  _ smart. _ Alleycats had to be, to live, and while he perhaps had never been on the streets before Plagg had made him climb walls and rooftops, Felix had ever preferred a warm chair, with hot chocolate, and either a good book or a long, engaging battle of chess.

His Queen may have been good at chess. Or maybe she could have recommended him a book, and he to her. He could remember her in plain clothes, holding glossed jackets, so lost to the words that she honestly did not see him and he could pass by without being harassed. He did not remember what had been on the covers. It had not been important--  _ she  _ had not been  _ important-- _

His chest squeezed tight, and for a long, terrifying moment, Felix couldn't breathe. She had been important. She was the  _ only thing important. _ He thought... the covers had been red. With gold letters, maybe. He remembered the whole thing had shined in the sun, reflecting it with a nearly blinding intensity.

His lungs unlocked. He forced his hand to let go of his hospital-issued blanket, reaching up to rub at his face. He tried for a moment to imagine what sort of books they had been, grateful for Plagg's oddly quiet existence. For once, the trickster understood the choice for solitude and silence. He was willing to let him hear white noise and not drown it with mischief. Perhaps he could only go so far while leashed to him, but he was  _ trying. _

It lasted until he heard his name in the cacophony outside his room. Felix lifted his head to look at the door, and Plagg pulled his out of the water cup.

_ "Do.. you think Felix will be alright? Can he come home?" _

_ "Madame de Noire, I am not a psychologist, I cannot attest to your son's mental state." _

_ "He says he cannot remember the last two years. Not the kidnapping, not his kidnappers, not his captivity," _ another voice added. He recognized it as one of the policemen who had interviewed him, bagged his clothes up for evidence, and somehow, someway,  _ thankfully, Bless you my Queen, thank you, thank you, _ had not noticed the onyx ring on his hand.  _ "How likely do you think it is he's telling the truth?" _

_ "I have treated enough crash victims to recognize trauma, Officer Odell," _ the doctor pointed out, tone level but the undercurrent tremulous.  _ "It is very likely he does not remember it now. He may never." _

_ "Isn't that a good thing?" _ Alexis de Noire asked. Felix had never before wanted to Calamity a window and throw himself on the asphalt as much as he did right now.  _ "If he doesn't remember... we don't have to walk on eggshells, right?" _

"This is a bad dream, Plagg. This is a bad dream and I would like to wake up now."

"What are you talking about, kid?"

_ "Hun, if he doesn't remember anything, how are we supposed to know what will trigger a flashback?" _

Alexis sighed heavily. Felix resisted the desperate urge to scale the wall and cling to the ceiling. This couldn't be happening.  _ "I suppose you're right, Séverin." _

"It's my parents."

The black cat blinked at him for a moment, then his eyes lit up. "Oooh. I've never seen your parents." He paused, brow furrowing in confusion. "Why is that, anyway?"

The group stopped outside his hospital door, still talking about if he could go  _ home _ . "Because they've been  _ dead _ for two years," he hissed, even as Plagg threw himself under the hospital bed and the door handle turned. 

\--

Felix permitted himself to stare out the window and ignore his would-be parents during the ride to the de Noire estate. He'd had a few moments to breathe and dress in ill-fitting clothes while they were filling out his discharge papers, but no time to talk to Plagg at all. They had dosed him up with another painkiller, which made him lethargic but more comfortable around his own bones. He hadn't been able to share the much-needed comfort with his kwami at all, which was a shame.

Plagg kept digging kitten-claws into his chest every bump and curve. The painkillers in his blood dampened the pain, but it didn't draw it away entirely; it was both hard and not hard enough to imagine the sort of agony the cat was going through. The movement of the vehicle jarred his bones and made him ache in all the most unpleasant ways, and the ghosts of his parents kept trying to  _ talk _ to him.

Supposedly they were going home.

The concept of it was almost alien.  _ Home _ was with his queen, sweet and fierce as she was, and it had been so close he had tasted it. Though that was perhaps the lingering scent of antibacterials and sterile air, mixing with the copper of Papillion's blood and the stench of burning akuma.

They wanted to know what he wanted for dinner, and he was starving, but he had no answer. Séverin called ahead on the car phone to tell the cooks to make "Felix's favorite." Alexis wanted to know when he wanted to go shopping for clothes, and Felix had no answer for that, either. He had bruises and stitches virtually everywhere; he was perfectly fine in super comfortable sweat-pants and an over-sized zip-up and super warm slippers.

No one knew his proportions in this household anymore, apparently, and her mother had sent her assistant to fetch something soft for "a sixteen year old boy." He suspected them to be very clean hand-me-downs, with tags removed to prevent scratching. Normally he would likely be bristling over the implication, but he was tired, cozy, and rather drugged. Plagg clung to him, teetering on the fine line between unconsciousness and the waking world, looking like nothing more than a fold in the cloth.

Neither of them noticed the ring on his finger. Maybe his Queen had given him just a little luck after all.

Maybe they weren't paying  _ attention. _

The car began to slow down, beginning a careful turn, and he reluctantly drew his attention back to the inside of the car. Wherever home was, they had apparently arrived, because Alexis was shifting uncomfortably. He forced himself to focus, to pay them attention and think through the fog the drugs put in his head.

"Felix," Séverin began, careful. "Your mother and I, we haven't changed your room since... the incident. You're welcome to change it however you like, but if you're not comfortable there, we can have one of the guest rooms officially become your own space."

It was almost painful how clear it was that they were waiting for him to say something. His parents had taught him how to be polite to strangers, but he doubted that was meant to apply to strangers wearing their faces, talking in their voices. They were grasping at straws already, and he had yet to be free of the hospital for twenty-four hours. He was unsure of what the correct answer was in this situation, just which words they were waiting to hear.

His home had been a little apartment. One bathroom, two bedroom, one of which he had converted into a private library that had eventually spilled into the sitting room. There had been a small kitchen that Felix had used sparingly; he was sixteen, and not truly meant to be on his own. The neighboring apartment had belonged to his custodians, a pair of the de Noire family servants who had volunteered to take him in when his parents had passed away.

Nine times out of ten, Felix had spent dinner with them, and they had aided him as much as they could with his homework. Then he would retreat to his own apartment, and it was there that he wanted to be returned.

But he had a feeling that would not happen. He could hear gates pulling open, and he had a terrible, sinking feeling they were returning to the de Noire estate.

He hadn’t been there in  _ years. _ He didn’t want to go  _ back. _

“I am certain my rooms will be sufficient.” The declaration made Alexis put her fingers to her lips, in a motion Felix recognized distantly as worry. Pharmaceuticals leadened his tongue, but that was not an excuse to pay no attention to their reactions. Knowledge of his surroundings had kept Chat Noir alive quite often; reading their enemy had sometimes kept them a hairs-breath ahead of the curve.

He was sure, though, that that had not been the response they had been expecting. That was fine. He wasn’t here to please them. They weren’t really his parents.

The car slowed to a stop, the minute jerk of arrested momentum compelling Plagg to sink his claws in deeper. Felix closed his eyes and breathed through it. Plagg didn’t mean to cause injury; he  _ never  _ meant to hurt him, not really. It was just.. bad luck. Felix had it, Plagg had it, Chat Noir’d had it. It was one of those things they couldn’t shake.

“Are you alright?” God, what a question. And Alexis sounded so  _ genuine _ that he wanted to answer, but he didn’t have an answer at all for that. What could he tell them that didn’t sound false, or that they would even accept hearing? What could he say besides  _ my queen is dead? _ Besides  _ you’re dead? _ If he admitted everything that was wrong, he would have to admit that  _ he was dead and this was Hell. _ He was being punished for letting Ladybug fall. He was being punished for taking revenge.

He was not alright. He would never be alright again.

But he couldn’t  _ say _ any of that. Admitting it out loud was admitting it at all, and he couldn’t bear the idea. He hurt too much to confront it. “I think I would like to lay down.”

“Oh! Yes, of course!” Someone, a servant probably, opened the door and Alexis fumbled ungracefully out of it. The door on the opposite opened too, but Felix didn’t pay mind to it. Alexis fostered off her purse and jacket to the servant, then Felix heard her turn back to him. “Let me help you.”

He cracked an eye open, considering her outstretched fingers and earnest expression, and resigned himself to give in. He let her take his arm and elbow as he shuffled himself sideways to the edge of the seat, and then planted slippers on the walk. It would be easier to have someone to lean on anyway, as opposed to having to rely on the walls to hold him upright. If it pacified the de Noire’s, he was just going to have to deal.

And he did have to rely on her, he was disgusted to realize. Climbing to his feet was dizzying, and he gripped at the door of the vehicle to steady himself. She held a lot of his weight to hold him verticle. It was ridiculous.

“Séverin? Would you?”

“Of course. Here, son, lean on me.”

Felix did not have enough energy to seriously consider digging his claws into someone’s arm.  _ They are lucky that way, _ he thought uncharitably.

The house was the de Noire estate; inherited by his father from his grandfather, who had inherited from his great grandfather. It had been in the family for a few generations. Séverin de Noire, the  _ real _ Séverin de Noire, hadn’t done much with it except keep it up, host a family Christmas party and a second one for business associates. Séverin had been a house-husband at the best of times, and a trophy husband at the worst. His contribution to society was that he existed to earn and spend money. He hadn’t, as far as Felix remembered, actually  _ done _ anything besides work in the family gardens, but he supposed he had probably managed family finances and made appearances at the businesses they had owned, too.

They hadn’t owned them for  _ long, _ once Felix had been orphaned. He had not known enough of the business world to viably take over, and somehow the papers naming Felix as the rightful owner in the event of Séverin’s death had gotten lost or misplaced until  _ after _ the executors of the estate had sold it. He probably would have minded it less if the money hadn’t been supposed to go in an account to ensure his guardian could continue to feed him, but it had basically vanished instead.

His mother Alexis had been a scientist. What exactly she had studied and why, he hadn’t known. Work was never discussed around the dinner table, either private or with company.

He remembered his parents being warm and generous though. They had been interested in hearing what he had learned at school, curious about his interests even though they had not been their own. He let himself remember those things as Alexis and Séverin helped him up the stone and steps, not complaining when shaky limbs took too long to cooperate or tried to throw him. If they noticed the way his arms shook with effort, they didn’t say anything.

Realistically he should have still been in the hospital, or at the very least in a wheelchair. There were stitches and pressure bandages and bruising from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail. But  _ realistic _ and  _ we have money _ often did not go together.

He was happy enough to be out of the hospital, at any rate. The food was tasteless and it was boring there, with nothing to do but sleep or fight the sedatives. He had heard them assure the doctor several times that they would have the family doctor look him over and they would ensure he rested, and in a few days they would bring him back to the hospital to be checked up, if he insisted.

It would be quieter at the estate than it had been in the hospital.

His room was on the second floor, and climbing the stairs took time.  The de Noire's were patient with him, and Felix was stubborn; a few servants had already offered to carry him up, but he was no kitten. He could walk on his own two feet, even if he didn't have support to keep him steady. How many times had he drug himself home after a day out running with his Queen, barely capable of crawling into his bed? Never mind how he had gotten there, which had ever been agony in some form or another.

Certainly he'd never had such stamina and musculature before Plagg and the cursed artifact. That he was so fatigued could be chalked up to his fight, the drugs, and his injuries. Papillion hadn't been an easy hunt; Felix had thrown everything he was into that fight. His rage had made him stronger, faster, more violent-- and it had savaged the very depths of his energy. 

He was looking forward to sleeping.

A lot.

He couldn't remember if the room had caught morning or afternoon sun, but at this point, it honestly didn't matter, as long as there was a clean bed he could collapse on to.

As luck would have it, it was afternoon sun, and the bed was comfortable feather-down and floof. He sank down bonelessly into it, utterly ignoring Alexis as she pulled off his slippers and tucked him beneath the blankets. "We'll come get you in a little while, alright, Felix?" He didn't answer, but it had sounded more like a statement and less like a question. She made a thoughtful sound and a few moments later he heard the door close as she, her husband, and the servants all vanished from the room.

It took everything he had to unzip his shirt. Plagg crawled from his chest to bury himself at the crook of his shoulder though, letting out a relieved sigh that made it worth the lost energy.  _ "Finally. _ Never thought the world would ever stop moving."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a tip jar! If you like my work, kudos and comments are great and I love them the best, but if you like it enough you want to do something more, you can always [Buy Me a Coffee](https://ko-fi.com/A3421QL)


	3. Mall Chats

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bah. Shopping. On the list of things Felix doesn't want to do, shopping isn't the top of the list, but it's pretty close.

He spent the rest of his recovery in more or less the same fashion.

He ate, and poked around his quarters, and slept. He entertained Séverin and Alexis as they wished it, and Plagg lounged in the sun, curled up on his pillow and just generally being a cat through and through.

More clothes were brought for him, some of them even in his size, most of them soft and comfortable. Felix continued to suspect broken-in hand-me-downs from someone's child, but they were loose enough not to chafe his injuries and they did not scratch at his flesh, so he permitted them to remain. More than that, he wore them often. If either of the de Noire's noticed, they said nothing at all on the matter, and indeed he did not have to wear anything else until Alexis decided he needed a new wardrobe entirely.

Shopping was easily Felix's least favorite activity.

Nevertheless, Alexis wanted to go, and being locked in a gilded cage was somewhat counter-productive to healing. Plagg agreed with her, which was downright baffling, even though he had a thousand reasons not to want to go, and several more to stay home and lounge. He promised Alexis he would think about it, and then he argued with his kwami about the prospect.

He did not want to go. _Getting better_ was a painful alternative to dying, the latter of which he had made his peace with and the former of which meant he would never see his Queen again. There were _people_ outside, they would want his attention as Marinette had wanted his attention, and he could not bear to give them even a little of it. There was also that he generally just did not like people to begin with, and why, exactly, could he not continue to wear the super comfortable clothing the servants kept bringing for him?

Felix would have dug his heels in further, except Plagg _cheated._

"Do you really think your Queen would have wanted you to waste away in your _room?"_

"Does it matter where I wither?" He bristled a little, showing teeth. He didn't know if he was angry that Plagg had brought her up, or upset by the reminder that she _wouldn't_ have. She would have wanted him to live, to grow old and keep protecting Paris without her. She had been sweet like that, had wanted to save everyone, even rogues like him who didn't deserve it. He didn't _want_ to continue on without her, though, and it wasn't fair that people wanted him to.

"You _know_ it matters, kid. We've got nine lives, I know it's wretched, but that's how it _is._ We can't hide in here forever. It wouldn't be fair to her."

"...I don't care if I die. At least I'll be with her again."

Plagg sighed heavily. Felix felt his chest twist at the sound, his own resolve failing as he watched the cat's shoulder slump. "I know. Just.. don't chase it, okay? I don't know how we made it out of that ship alive, but it was probably her watching out for us. You know she'd be heartbroken if you died."

 _"Marinette_ would--" His throat seized, chest tightening. His queen had _been_ Marinette, when all had been said and done, hadn't she? _Marinette_ would have been heartbroken if he permitted himself to drown in her loss, and so _Ladybug_ would be heartbroken. He squeezed his eyes shut, his own heart heavy with loss and guilt. He hadn't been able to save her; not quick enough, not lucky enough. He wished, not for the first time this week, that Papillion had gotten his spindly fingers on his ring instead of his queen's earrings. She could have saved herself, then. From the fall, from the zeppelin, from everything. She would have been able to get Plagg to safety, would have saved _all_ the kwami..

"..Felix?"

He swallowed hard, not trusting himself to speak, and blinked away the wetness from his eyes. If he was going out, then he needed a shower first. He was a well-cultured cat, and if his queen would have wanted him to live, then he was going to do it the right way.

After he was showered and properly dressed, with Plagg tucked close in an interior pocket, Felix went to permit Alexis to take him shopping. The woman was ecstatic about it, taking his elbow to lead him to the car, and he immediately regretted his decision. At least she did not seem terribly interested in making him communicate during the ride.

\--

The shopping center was fairly high-end, and contained approximately as many people as he had been afraid it would. It was the sort of place where Felix could have only gotten more expensive clothing if they had gone directly to a tailor, or otherwise had one brought to the estate. Before his parents had died, that had been the way of things; his father was a de Noire, after all, and their money was old. Felix could certainly not have gotten away something mass produced.

Alexis must have noticed his doubtful expression, because she turned troubled aqua eyes to him, wringing her hands. "Are you sure you don't mind? I know your father wanted to bring a designer to the house, but I thought seeing people your own age might be good for you, and.. I wanted to spend time with you." She stopped talking for a moment to breathe. He nodded his head to.. encourage her or agree. He couldn't be sure of which. She smiled, soft and exceedingly grateful. Her fingers twisted her wedding ring, the same way he often played with his miraculous. "I'm glad you're humoring me, dear."

"I had to get out eventually." He hadn't, really. It hadn't been part of his plan. Not that.. he had _had_ much of a plan, really. Even healing he had simply resigned himself to letting happen, with no conscious desire on his own.

Plagg alone was the only reason he had recovered as much as he had. When Felix felt like doing nothing but laying in bed all day, the cat fussed and clawed and basically kicked him out of it-- because Plagg required the entire bed to be comfortable, for some reason. When Felix had nightmares about his Queen's broken form on the ground beneath her favorite landmark, Plagg sank in his teeth until blood was drawn and he woke up.

When Felix decided he was not going to face the world, as he had this morning, Plagg alone was responsible for making him grind his teeth and do it anyway.

"I'm glad you decided to," Alexis murmured. She shooed away the driver and led him into the building of shops and brands his custodians never would have been able to afford. "I was beginning to get a little worried you would never come out of your room. Your father didn't think you would want to try going out so soon."

He wasn't _wrong,_ there, that was the thing. Felix smothered a wry smile before it could bloom. No reason to give the woman the wrong idea. "It has been very stressful recently. It is.. understandable that he would believe so."

"We can make appointments with a therapist--"

"I do not need a therapist." The words came out sharper than he intended.

Alexis flinched, barely, but she offered him a small smile herself. "Of course. The doctors thought we should, of course, and the police will insist. They still want to talk to you some more."

Of course they did. They had been by a few times, but he'd had nothing to say to them. They were operating under the assumption that he had been kidnapped, and of course that had never happened. Séverin de Noire was a ghost; Felix hadn't seen him since he had come to the estate, though Alexis made a point of peeking in on him at least twice a day. Before and after work, he assumed. So Séverin was avoiding the issue, and Alexis was _walking on eggshells,_ as she had called it.

It was strange to be around people so visually alike those he had buried years ago. He was caught flat-footed every time he saw Alexis, and every time she opened her mouth. She plucked at old memories he had thought weren't bothering him anymore. He had mourned his mother for years, and he thought that the pain was distant.

It was closer to him than he liked. It made it easier to talk to her, and harder to lie.

"I told them I don't remember anything."

"I know, darling. But they're hoping you can remember even little pieces that can help them catch the men who took you. 'Every detail is crucial to the investigation,'" she quoted, her voice a decent approximation of Officer Odell's. She paused and slid her eyes over him, both considering and appraising. "You _will_ tell us if you remember anything, wont you?"

"Of course."

"Hm... that's good, then. Pants first, I think, and small clothes. And then we can browse the shirts at our leisure."

It was surprising how easily she dropped it. Felix knew the matter wasn’t closed, of course. Adults could be stubborn that way. The police thought he had answers to things that had never happened, and Alexis and her husband believed that he was returned to them from that same incident. People who had been kidnapped and held captive for two years almost certainly needed some sort of therapy. Add to that amnesia?

Not that he had amnesia. He recalled the last few years vividly. But saying it had never happened was easier than saying something _else_ had happened, and trying to convince people his reality was the real one. Better to let them believe a comforting lie.

Still…

Felix fell into step beside her, refusing the irrational desire to shove his fingers into his pockets. It didn’t matter if she wasn’t his mother, _he_ had an image to uphold that had nothing to do with the de Noire family name and everything to do with the fact that he would never be caught dead at anything less than his best.

He blithely ignored the fact that Officer Rogers had seen him at his lowest.

As had hospital staff, other officers, and an emergency response team.

Alexis led him into the first shop she deemed acceptable for his purposes.

Socks and undergarments of varying colors were ordered in his sizes, all of them solid in design and made of acceptable fabrics. Felix had been used to being without the ‘best’ for years, and as a cat he was picky. He could see the gears working in her brain as she tried to analyze his choices, why he skipped over the most expensive or the largest trademark brands or those designed by latest fashion.

In pants he bought simple slacks in decent colors; mostly black and gray. Alexis showed him to some new designs, citing that the designer lived right here in Paris and that he had a son about Felix’s age. He decided to pass over the _Agreste_ logo on principle. There were only so many things someone could do to a pair of _trousers._

He and Alexis traveled deeper into the shops. There were more _Agreste_ logos in the shirts, some of them much too bright for Felix’s taste. A few of them were simple, fine cut with upturned collars, material airy but dark enough to suit him.  At least one appeared to go with a larger array of clothing, shown with slacks from the other store and simple accessories.

He made a point to pass the last one up, but he got a few of the former in black and dark blue.

Alexis raised an eyebrow at his choices. Felix didn’t dare look at her, unwilling to let her question it.

Another brand had a very simple shirt in red with black polkadots, done with short sleeves, the material silky. Looking at it brought a pain to his chest, because he knew where the idea had come from. This was based off his Queen. There were no two ways about it.

“Do you want it?” Alexis asked, stopping at his side. His other shirts hung on her arm, waiting for them to take them to the front.

That was not a question he particularly wanted to answer, mostly because he _did._ He would never wear it, of course, not publicly. It would be devastating to the family name to be seen wearing lady-bug spots, no matter how trendy or fashionable they were. Even after the death of his parents, Felix had still made a point to dress appropriate to his lineage.

But his queen-- Marinette, she would have liked it. She would have lit up to see him in something so silly, he thought, to see him walking around in her colors. It was tempting.

“I am Shoplifty!”

It was a mad cackle, tinged teenage by the sound of it. Greedy and wounded. He knew what it was in an instant.

_No._

_Don’t you dare._

Something round and golden, the size of a hubcap and thin as a razor, bit into the store-front’s glass window, knocking down a mannequin that clattered to the ground. Not soundless, but Felix suspected only he heard it over the sudden cacophony of screaming and shattering glass. Another disk thunked into the glass, and this time, it didn’t stop. It sailed like a cutting blade at throat level, and seared off the heads of several mannequins as it passed, until it embedded itself in the far wall.

Alexis dropped his shirts and dove at him. He let her pull him to the ground and behind a table of neatly folded shirts, his mind whirring.

It couldn’t be an akuma. He had killed Papillion. Felix could still smell the stench of the old man’s blood beneath his claws, staining him up the wrist to elbow, flecks of blood on his cheeks and drenching his hair. He had bled _fountains._ And then he had _burned._

He would never wash the blood clean. He didn’t want to. He couldn’t escape the flames in his nightmares. They were meant to take him to his queen!

_I didn’t stop it. That dust-covered pillock is still alive._

He didn’t know how. It didn’t really matter, in the end. That he was still breathing was entirely unacceptable. He had made his queen a promise, and he wouldn’t break it. Moreover, if Papillion was _still alive,_ then he was glad he was still alive so he could make good on his promise _again._

 _I have nine lives, and if I get to kill him in all of them, so be it._ But first, Alexis.

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pulled him up against her, as if she could protect him from an _akuma._ For a terrible and wild moment, his heart tried to climb out of his throat with grief, because that was what _mom_ would have done. For one heartbeat, he was fourteen and desperate for his parents, who had always known how to make everything better, even if they were distant or distracted.

“You can’t stop me! I’m going to take everything beautiful in the mall!”

 _I am going to leave your bloody carcass hanging from the rafters,_ Felix decided darkly, heart aching. He grabbed Alexis’ hands and wormed his way out of her grip, because he couldn’t stay here hiding like a newborn kitten. He had to _go._ He had to transform. But first he had to separate from this woman.

“We have to go,” he whispered, quiet, urgent.

Alexis scrambled to try to pull him back to her, shaking her head. “It’s an akuma. Ladybug will handle it.”

He wanted to vomit. _Ladybug will handle it._

_She can’t, she’s dead, and I have to kill it, because she’s dead and she can’t purify it and she would cry if anybody died._

Chat Noir had always been the bad-luck black cat, the invisible sidekick to his queen’s perfect glow. He wasn’t surprised Alexis didn’t think of him.

Shoplifty, the wretched interloper, cackled from outside. Felix risked a peek over the table and saw the most gaudy thing in the world, glittering in diamonds and gems and precious metals. She looked like Midas had molested her. Alexis pulled him down, hissing like a particularly annoyed dame, and then it all but squeaked off when Shoplifty spoke.

“I can see it,” she sing-songed, too sweet and too sharp. “The wedding ring on your finger, the sapphire in your hair. So _precious.”_

Something whirred. Felix pounced Alexis, throwing his whole body into it as he fell into a roll, twisted to bring her with him. The shirt table broke in half as another disk cut through it like a giant buzz saw, and he knew _too much about buzz saws._

 _Not on my watch._ Shoplifty could kill _other people._ This woman was masquerading as his mother, but if he wanted her dead, he’d do it _himself._ Alexis stumbled to her feet, but Felix was already on his and pulling her along.

“Felix, we have to hide--”

“We have to _run._ People who die _don’t come back.”_

There was no shop door. Felix risked a glance at Shoplifty and saw her standing beside the mannequin he had been examining, the spotted shirt in ribbons, looking at where he and Alexis had been. He pulled them out into the main, looking for the most fleeing civilians, and drug Alexis into a run. He could get lost in a crowd, it was easy.

 _Everything still hurts. I’m not better yet._ So. No hunting, just a kill. Shred the akuma until he found the butterfly, and then shred the butterfly. When there was _nothing left_ then Papillion had no control. Maybe he could even save the victim.

They passed into the wake of people leaving, and Felix let her loose. People were spilling out of shops on either side, and it was a trick to shove himself into the hall that broke off to the restrooms without being trampled. A quick scan assured the men’s room was empty.

“I thought we’d _stopped_ this,” Plagg groused from inside his jacket, even before Felix had the chance to pull the material away from him to release the kwami into free space. Useless, really, considering the cat could more or less pass through solid matter when he wanted to, but Felix had long since come to the awareness that _wanting to_ was a matter of willpower and a great amount of energy. Plagg _could,_ if he had to, but it _hurt._

Plagg preferred to go around obstacles, brushing up against them just enough to leave fine black fur behind.

“We should make sure it sticks this time,” Felix allowed, bringing his hand up to flash the ring. “Plagg, claws out!”


	4. Bad Luck Chat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alexis drags Felix shopping. It goes about as badly as it could have gone.

Shoplifty was a garish creature. She hadn’t gotten any prettier in the few moments that Felix had been away, having donned so much _bling_ that even her glitter glittered. Dozens of rings adorned her fingers, and her arms and ankles were laden with wristlets of silver and gold. Necklaces tangled with each other around her throat, so many that it had to be an easy thirty-pound noose.

He honestly couldn’t figure out why anybody could possibly want or need that much jewelry, never mind wear it all at once. But she did it, somehow.

“Oh! Rubies are so pretty! Doesn’t it look just darling on me?”

He had walked bold as brass back to where he had last seen her, and watched as she had the audacity to steal a woman’s wedding ring from her hand and slip it onto her own, fingers parted to get a good look.

Beneath her on the floor, he caught the sound of labored breathing and a heartbeat. There was too much blood from different sources for him to say for sure how badly she was injured, but she was _unconscious,_ and that was enough.

“I don’t know,” Sarcasm. He could do sarcasm instead of blinding rage. _This is my city. This is_ Ladybug’s _city. Get out!_ “Really don’t think red is your color.”

The villain spun on stilettos to face him. Part of Felix’s brain tilted to try to understand the maneuver and the violation of physics it had just applied. The other part was far more focused on the present, because _normal, sane villains_ usually took one look at him and either ran for it or attacked.

Shoplifty _smiled._

Hm.

“Hello there, kitty-cat! I’ve been waiting for you!”

“Well, hopefully I did not keep the lady waiting long. That would just be entirely ungentlemanly of me.”

“Not long at all,” she promised. “I was told you had an absolutely _beautiful_ ring, and I just have to have it for myself!”

He was Chat Noir, and unfortunately, that meant he was a cat. He couldn’t resist lifting his hand to show off the gem around his finger, obsidian with cats-eye and ruby. “Oh, you mean this? Sorry. It’s not for sale.”

“Everything has a price,” Shoplifty disagreed. Her smile stretched wide, touching _almost_ on inhuman, and Felix felt all the hair on his neck stand on end at the sight of it. His muscles tensed. “I suppose I’ll just have to cut it off your fingers, Chat!”

He thanked all his lucky stars for cat-like reflexes, as Shoplifty threw her hand forward and let loose a bangle of gold that quickly became a ring of doom. He flung himself to the side to dodge it, tail snapping behind him to keep his balance, then flung himself forward. Not at the akuma-- honestly, he didn’t want to _touch_ her, and he wasn’t sure where the butterfly was-- but at her victim. A tumbling roll sent him over her, and momentum brought him back up to his feet. The woman should have weighed practically nothing in his arms, but he could feel the strain and stress on healing muscles. By-product of not enough healing time.

“Time is money! I’ll pay you back in a minute!”

“Come back here!” Shoplifty howled after him, even as he turned and sprinted down the shopping center.

He was the bad luck cat. If he let this woman stay in the battle zone-- if he didn’t get her out of the way…

He found a blind corner to turn around and found himself in a shoe store, one with a long counter along the back wall. Two panicked heartbeats and too-fast breathing told him there were people here. He jumped the counter and dropped down into a crouch before two clerks. One of them let out an aborted scream before clapping his hands over his mouth to silence himself.

Chat raised an eyebrow. “What, never seen a black cat before?”

“Chat Noir...”

Were there any _other_ cat-themed superheroes running around with a bell around their throat? Felix didn’t think so. He eased the injured woman down onto the floor, watching as the easily-spooked clerk pulled his jacket from one of the cubbies and bundled it up to rest under her head.

“I need you two to look after her. Can you do that?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Try to stop the bleeding if you can; the akuma hit her pretty hard.” He had blood on his catsuit. Now that he was getting a good look at the lady, he noted the gash on her scalp, painting the side of her face and matting much of her hair to her skull.

Head wounds bled rivers. She probably had a concussion too. Running with her likely hadn’t helped, but considering Shoplifty threw razor disks of _death,_ _not_ running hadn’t been an option.

Jumpy’s less startled associate was pulling off his own jacket, wadding it up to press against the injury. He looked surprised, like he hadn’t noticed it at first, but also determined to do what needed to be done.

Jumpy nodded numbly. “Where’s Ladybug?”

 _Dead,_ he wanted to tell them, hating that it had been brought up, hating that it had been him who had caused it. Papillion may have let her go-- but it was Chat who hadn’t caught her. He wanted to vomit. Instead, he stood up. “Stay hidden. I’ll send someone for you when this is over. If you hear the akuma coming this way, throw your jewelry in the center of the store-- she shouldn’t come back here for you then.” He hoped not, anyway. He was banking on her attraction to jewelry for a lot of things right now.

 _“Go,”_ the determined clerk hissed at him.

Obligingly, Chat Noir vaulted over the counter, letting momentum throw him into a sprint when he landed.

He didn’t find _anyone else_ between him and Papillion’s chosen victim this time. Though he did find that Shoplifty had gotten distracted and wandered back into what he assumed was the jewelry store that had started all this.

At least, he _hoped_ that it was the shop that had started all this, considering it looked veritably ransacked. Glass cases were broken open, jewelry strewn about the floor, some of it looking incredibly expensive. Things his parents could buy, perhaps, or something that took a year’s worth of paychecks by the layman to acquire.

He thought, _hoped,_ that everyone had managed to flee this area with little injury to themselves. That Shoplifty had been distracted enough by Papillion’s games not to immediately lash out and injure anyone. It was a frail hope, of course. Chat had always been the pessimist of Paris’ duet.

There was no blood, at least. Thank Plagg for the good nose.

“Forget about me already? I’m heartbroken,” he told her, laying his hands over his chest. He was delighted when she spun around to face him, surprise etched on every atom of her body. “I thought we had something special.” Her mouth opened, but nothing came out. He grinned widely, all teeth. “What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?”

“Chat Noir.”

“That’s my name.”

“You ran away,” Shoplifty _pouted._ Chat felt his hair stand on end, barely resisted the urge to hiss at her. “That was rude.”

He shrugged. “What can I say? Cats are assholes.”

“You are,” Shoplifty agreed. She fingered a golden bangle on her wrist, a calculative gleam in her eye. He watched her closely, the smile painted on his face. He remembered smiling a lot, chasing his Queen across rooftops, but now the action felt foreign and unfamiliar. He wondered if Shoplifty could see how fake it was. But it didn’t really matter, since the akuma swept her hand out and threw a Tolkien of rings at him.

And like those rings, they were about to fuck him up.

Felix marveled at it for a moment, watching the jewelry tumble out of her fingers and continue to defy logic and gravity, spinning and growing as they made their way to him until they were about the size of fists. Smaller variants of the hoops she had thrown before, the ones that had sheared through store fronts and product.

 _These things cut through people,_ his mind reminded him unhelpfully. As if he hadn’t remembered that. As if it was not the next logical step to take.

 _Would it kill me?_ He wondered, waiting until they were close before he dropped to a low crouch; they whistled above his head, the breeze catching his hair. Shoplifty said something, and there was another glint of gold and silver. He rolled to the side to miss those, listened to the grind as they bit into marbled tile. A bit of contortion brought him back to his feet, but he kept moving. There was no one here but the two of them, and if she was losing ammunition…

 _Would it kill me?_ Maybe. The only way to know for sure was to stop and check, but this was Paris, this was _his city,_ Ladybug’s city, _Marinette’s--_

“Stand _still, you stupid cat!”_

And this was Papillion’s Akuma.

He couldn’t die before he held the man’s heart in his hands again. His queen’s murderer could not be permitted to live. It had already taken his last breath to make it happen once, he thought, ducking behind a countertop momentarily; _thunk, thunk, thwack._ He would __gladly_ _ do it again, he decided, just as soon as he got rid of the minor distraction terrorizing his shopping mall. Really, it would be therapeutic. The people masquerading as his parents wanted him to get therapy, right?

“Your aim is _really_ bad. Isn’t there anything you can do right?”

“If you’d stop hiding like a _scaredy cat,”_ Shoplifty growled, a rattle of jewelry in a glass jar that shook at his bones, “Then I would have hit you already.”

“I wouldn’t be doing you any help if I stood still and let you hit me,” Felix pointed out, flicking his attention up to the mirror on the countertop. It only let him see Shoplifty’s shoes, but it still let him find her visually.

“Everybody else did!”

“I’m not sure civilians quantify as sufficient target practice.”

Shoplifty’s foot shifted in the mirror, and air _whirred--_

Jerked, momentum arrested rather abruptly. Chat Noir heard the tell-tale sound of an entirely different spinning disk. Was that… a _yo-yo?_

_What the-- Stupid civilians! They’re going to get themselves killed!_

He twisted out of his hiding spot and moved to throw himself over the counter, just as Shoplifty turned to find her weapon held aloft in the red gloved fingers of a costume that was familiar and unfamiliar both. Shoplifty shrieked in outrage. _“Ladybug!”_

_Ladybug._

It couldn’t be. _She’s dead. She died, I saw her die--_

But no. Felix would know her anywhere. Bright blue eyes behind a spotted mask, hair done up in trademarked pigtails. He couldn’t read her expression, exactly, but he saw a tongue of worry in the set of her mouth, the determination in her stance.

“You okay, Chaton?”

Kitten? _Kitten?_

He blinked at her and nodded, feeling like he’d swallowed his tongue instead. Ladybug, _Marinette,_ stood before him, alive and breathing and _alive._

And she called him _kitten?_

 _Maybe I did die, and this is the afterlife._ Maybe. Possibly. It sounded as probable as _everything else_ right now.

“Great!” And just like that, Marinette’s attention slid off him and onto Shoplifty, leaving him feeling cold and disjointed. But she was alive, and _here._ “I don’t suppose you want to just hand over the akuma, do you?”

“I want your earrings!” Shoplifty replied, voice twisted into an echo. Felix could only stare at them numbly as the akuma threw herself at his queen and they tumbled into the shattered store-front display, shards of glass cracking underneath. Ladybug responded by thumping her in the head with the broad side of the yo-yo.

“Sorry, they’re mine!”

“I will have them!”

_Marinette’s alive. But I saw her…_

Thunk. Crunch. A full-body maneuver as Shoplifty tried at her again, and Ladybug sent the akuma over her shoulder and into a cabinet on the other side of the shop. Tikki had said she only expounded upon what was there already, giving her Ladybugs nothing they did not already have in themselves, but it was bewildering to see it happen in real time.

“Chat, a little help here?!”

He shook himself, full-body, _wake up._ His queen was calling for him. What else was he going to do?

He threw himself off the shop counter and onto the stunned Shoplifty, clawed fingers digging into the grooves between rings and bracelets. Divested of her weaponry, they’d have a _lot better_ time finding the akuma butterfly. Beneath the jewelry, her fingers were stone, so he didn’t bother minding the points. Sometimes Ladybug wanted him to; he could almost feel her touching him, her voice soft as she reminded him, _they’re just people, don’t hurt them._

The tips of his fingers touched the silver bangle on her wrist and Shoplifty writhed like he’d electrocuted her instead. He set his teeth and _pulled._ “Ladybug! Catch!”

He didn’t have time to think about how dumb it was to toss the bracelet to Ladybug, because Shoplifty hooked a pointed heel beneath his ribs and kicked out, and he left her lap half-thrown, half-spun. Landed hard in a crash of glass and thin wood as the display case caught him and gave way.

Everything _hurt,_ the way it had hurt when he had landed in the dumpster. An all-over ache colored here and there by sharper, knife-like pains, the knowledge that something should be broken but he had _just enough luck_ that he’d _live._

_“Chat!”_

_Ow,_ he thought, absently, dazed. _This hurts. I’m not dead-- kill me now._ Oh, how he _wished_ he were. It hurt too much to be true. The pain of his body was nothing, the pain of his _heart..._

He rested his head against the shelf and tried to let the throbbing pass. Glass ground beneath him, sharp edges cutting into the suit, and he could feel where Shoplifty’s heel had punctured it. He didn’t want to think about broken ribs right now. The abused bones had already been hanging on by a thread as it was.

_Marinette..._

_“Give me my bracelet!”_

“Chat, catch!” A crash, a tussle-- distorted, as if he were listening to it under the ocean, but Ladybug’s voice was an order and he jerked up in compliance, snatching the glint of silver out of the air. “Break it!”

 _Jump!_ Ladybug said, and Chat threw himself off the ledge--

The dark power welled up in him at once, a lifetime of accumulated bad luck, a _world_ of bad luck, all of it at his beck and call. It coalesced into his fingers like tar, popping and bubbling, and he poured it all into the metal between his fingers.

_“Cataclysm!”_

Silver soaked up poison like a blotting rag and ink, and then it crumbled in his fingers like so much dust. Tiny wings fluttered, belonging to a creature no bigger than his palm and such a dark indigo it was nearly black. Papillion’s _akuma._

 _Ladybug’s dead,_ his brain reminded him, even as the creature shook off the dust of the Cataclysm and began its ascent into the air. _Ladybug can’t save anybody now._ But Chat was a cat. Cats got rid of butterflies all the time.

He jerked forward and snapped his jaw closed, tasting black dust in his mouth-- on the roof, on his tongue, powder and poison, so much less hate than he expected, so much more _greed--_

He swallowed it down.

Shoplifty’s agonized scream cut through the air like a diamond saw, but it twisted and warped as it went on, until it was eventually replaced by soft, pain-filled sobbing. He glanced around as he staggered to find his balance, green gaze eventually falling on a young woman with brown hair and a simple dress curled up into a ball on the floor, palms over her ears. He could smell salt-water in the air.

Nearby her, Ladybug-- _Marinette’s alive?_ \--stood with the yo-yo in hand, staring at him with a slack jaw. “You… ate it.”

Felix’s chest seized, ribs protesting, and he bowed to try to hack out a lung. She was at his side in an instant, and he relished the hand on his shoulder, the weight of it, how _real_ it felt. His throat was too dry from the butterfly-dust for him to speak just yet, though, and it wouldn’t _come out.._

Of course it wouldn’t. He had _eaten_ it. It was the only way to do it without Ladybug there to purify it--

“--alive,” Felix gasped, feeling like he was suffocating. In some ways he must have been. _Ladybug’s_ **_alive!_ ** “You, you’re alive--”

“Of course I am, but you-- who knows what that will do to you, are you okay?”

“I-- chitin,” he managed, trying to remember science texts. School hadn’t seemed nearly as important when he had been trying to save Paris and remove the ring. He had skipped a _lot_ of classes. Marinette had always worried over her grades. He wondered how upset she would have been-- _would_ be, if she knew he really hadn’t been worried about school at all? “Scales.”

“Cats shouldn’t eat butterflies,” Ladybug teased him lightly. He thought she might be smiling, but he didn’t have the strength to straighten up yet. There was still a lung in here to be removed, somewhere. “They’re poisonous, don’t you know?”

 _Good,_ he thought viciously, _maybe I’ll die and be with you._

But Ladybug was _alive._ He.. thought he might still be dreaming. Was he in a coma? Was he _actually_ _already_ dead?

He tried to straighten and dozens of pinpricks across his back twinged in protest around slides of glass. “I’ve got nine lives, my Queen-- I’ll be alright.”

Ladybug frowned at him, eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Did you get _taller?”_

Uh. What? “No?”

She _frowned_ at him.

 _Time for a tactical retreat, Plagg._ He forced himself to straighten up, ignoring the _ow_ in favor of the lightning thrill of feeling her hand slide down his chest. He thought he might be bleeding again, but pain wasn’t a weakness he wanted to show to her. She needed him to be strong for her. _He_ needed to be strong for her, stronger than he had been, strong enough to save her. But his body was going to betray him, and his costume… Cataclysm took a lot out of them both.

“Can you handle it from here?” Felix questioned, watching her.

 _You’re alive,_ he wanted to repeat-- scream it at the world, damn the consequences of losing his alter ego in one fell swoop. He wanted to show her who he was, he wanted to apologize for _everything._ For letting her fall, for not killing Papillion sooner. For failing in his duties.

 _I love you,_ he wanted to tell her, and the words caught in his throat like gossamer dust.

“I… yeah. Listen, are you sure you’re going to be okay? The akuma--”

“Isn’t the first one I’ve eaten,” Chat Noir promised her, though the way her eyes widened was a knife to the chest. She looked so surprised about it, so _horrified_ of the admittance.. But what else could he do to save Paris, when his queen was gone? What did anyone think he’d _done_ with all Papillion’s terrors, set to unleash upon Paris like a ripe fruit, bursting at the seams with fear now that Ladybug was dead?

He’d had to. “I’ll be alright. I _promise.”_

_I promise I’ll be okay. I promise I won’t let you fall again. I promise that I will be here._

_I promise I’m going to rip out Papillion’s heart and serve it to you on a plate._

Ladybug nodded. He didn’t know if she heard what he couldn’t bring himself to say, but she stepped back and to the side, allowing him a clear path out of the shop. “Okay. I’ll clean up Hawkmoth’s mess. See you on patrol tonight?”

He nodded. “If I can get out in time.”

It was hard to maintain the painless facade, hard not to limp to the door and around the corner. Harder still not to turn at the sound of the yo-yo spinning as he did, because _since when did Ladybug have a yo-yo?_ Only once he was safely out of her line of sight did he allow his shoulders to sag as he went to find a safe place to release Plagg. He was going to have quite a bit of explaining to do when he found Alexis…

He smiled faintly, his limited energy spent.

_“Miraculous Ladybug!”_

Okay, maybe going shopping _had_ been worth it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I need to find a different chapter naming theme... Don't be surprised if I start churning out chapters titled with song lyrics.


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